The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio.

Hello, today on the podcast we talked to an expert in English Renaissance drama to understand why those

playwrights were so obsessed with the will in the sense of desire or determination, and in the sense of a legal

document that directs what should happen to property after one's death.

How do these concepts overlap, and why were they of such interest to such prominent writers?

Plus, we look at number seven on our list of the greatest books of all time.

And no, we're not idiots telling tales.

Thank you very much.

Hint, hint.

All that coming up today on the history of literature.

Music Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast, everyone. I'm Jack Wilson. I hope you are all having a good November, wherever you may be. Wills and willmaking. They're both kind of fascinating, so common to our understanding

of ourselves and our relationships with others that they almost disappear from view until they don't.

Wills as a concept. What do we mean by saying that someone willed it to happen? or when we describe someone as strong-willed,

or we say they have a will to power, or a will to survive, or a will to win.

Of course, there's the entire debate around free will. Is that how we can best understand

our central theological dilemma in a monotheistic world?

If God is good, why do bad things happen? What explains Hitler? Could it be that it's because

God's great gift to humanity was free will? Isn't free will what makes good things good and bad things bad? We must have a choice

for people to be good or bad. But what about original sin? Whose will was that? We're all sinners.

Did you decide that? How can we have free will if we're subject to Eve biting an apple in some

ancient garden? Dilemmas, dilemmas around the concept of will. And it's kind of odd that it's the same

word as will as in a last will in testament, or maybe that's not so odd. That is a person saying,

...